Nowadays productivity plays an important role in printing systems. Print jobs are printed consecutively by means of a printing device. After printing upon sheets by the printing device the sheets are transported to an output holder attached to the printing device. The output holder may be part of the printing device or coupled to an outlet of the printing device. The output holder has a maximum capacity expressed in a maximum number of sheets in the output holder—mostly media dependent—, expressed in a maximum weight of the amount of sheets in the output holder, and/or expressed in a maximum stack height of the sheets in the output holder. The sheets form a stack of sheets in the output holder.
Two scenarios for ejection of the stack from the output holder are generally known. During a stack ejection the stack of sheets is transported from inside the output holder towards outside the output holder by transporting means. After the stack ejection the empty output holder is ready for receiving the next sheets from the printing device.
In a first scenario the printing device receives print jobs and schedules the received printing jobs in a print job schedule. After each print job has been printed by the printing device and has arrived in the output holder, the sheets of the print job are ejected from the output holder. This way of ejection is often a standard system setting of the printing device.
In a second scenario the printing device or more specifically the output holder comprises a detecting means for detecting that the stack of sheets reaches the maximum capacity and an ejection of the stack is performed.
A combination of both scenarios may as well be implemented. In case of a print job which number of sheets accumulated with the sheets already deposited in the output holder exceeds the maximum capacity of the output holder a stack ejection may be planned before the start of the print job.
Both scenarios have disadvantages. By ejecting sheets from the output holder after each print job according to the first scenario, much time is consumed by the moments of ejection. By only ejecting sheets from the output holder when the output holder has reached its maximum capacity, sheets of a plurality of print jobs are stacked and the sheets may be undistinguishable as distinct jobs in the stack. Additional jogging devices must be configured to distinguish the subsequent print jobs in the stack. When the stack is only ejected when the output holder has reached its maximum capacity, the operator is unable to have a look at the separate print jobs since the stack may be positioned internally in the printing device before ejection.
It is an objective of the present invention to overcome these disadvantages in a user friendly and productive manner.